From your cow-orkers point of view, BTW, your complaint might be viewed as equivalent to:

We're a group of carpenters. One of our young carpenters thinks hammers with fiberglass handles are just wonderful. He keeps trying to talk about them; he even has meetings about them. He invited one of the leading fiberglass hammer handle manufacturers to come speak to us. But we don't understand his fascination with what (to us) is just a useful tool...

Not everyone who reads "The Hobbit" goes on to "The Simarillion" or puts runes on his home node. Not everyone who earns money off of the Internet has a broadband connection. Not everyone who drives changes his own oil.programmer in general, in that I can also work in C or Java or shell or Ruby or whatever circumstances dictate.

If you like it and enjoy playing with it, that's very good. There are dozens of other people here and on p5p and #perl and use Perl; who feel the same way.

I'm a Perl programmer, sure. I'd like to think I'm a programmer in general. I can also work in C or Java, shell, Ruby, or whatever circumstances dictate. As with most all hobbies, we're in a distinct minority when you look across the globe.

It's not that we don't use Perl for work, it's that we use it outside of work as well. There's the difference.

Update: ChemBoy pointed out intermingled paragraphs near the end. It's fixed now.

In any vocation there are those who like the tools and those who like the task. If you are truly blessed you like both.

Within a work environment the task is the prime objective. Choosing the right tool for the job and then using it for the task at hand is the goal. There is nothing wrong with this, indeed it is the way it should be.

While the tools are an integral part of the task there comes a point where a fascination for the tools obscures the core task at hand. Within a working environment this can be a problem.

Although programmers like Damien Conway would find a job almost anywhere they have chosen an academic environment to allow them to indulge their fascination with the tools without having too many annoying tasks (that that actually have to be done) to spoil the fun.

Sure professional development in a work environment is important and to be encouraged but so to is the development of interpersonal skills and teamwork. Let's face it you love hacking Perl, and are very good at it - but you are setting youself up for disappointment if you want everyone to share your particular personal passion of patching porting and playing with Perl.

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Sure, I enjoy programming, and I'm glad I can make a living doing this. I read and websurf and follow mailing lists to keep my knowledge up to date, for this job and for the day when I have to find another job. I try to contribute here because I believe it's the Right Thing to do, in return for what I've gotten from the "community" over the years.

But this is not my life. Not my job, perl, programming, open-source, or any of it. I take my work very seriously (that is what they're paying me for, isn't it?). If there's a talk that sounds interesting to me or is relevant to my work, I'll attend and enjoy it, but a perlmongers meeting is not among my favorite hangouts. If I'm going to spend a week's time and the cost of a conference out of my own pocket, I'll be out on a sailboat or a motorcycle somewhere, hopefully without a computer in sight.

Among some of my motorcycling friends, the fact that I work with a computer all day instead of fiddling with engines makes me not a "biker", just someone who rides motorcycles. By your reasoning, my (lack of) enthusiasm for perl makes me not a "perl programmer", but just a "programmer who does perl"?

In either case, I don't know where the line is, and I don't really care. Why the need to separate the "real" and the "wannabe" anyway? Why be discouraged because the world doesn't share your zeal for perl (or motorcycles, or left-handed screwdrivers, or whatever)? You enjoy it as more than just a tool for your job, so enjoy it (and leave the others to enjoy whatever it is that gets them all fired up).

I mentioned Randal Schwartz's name to someone here who uses perl, and he said "Oh, isn't he that felon..."
:-) --->(while this smiley face is meant to indicate humour in the previous statement, I'd like to point out that it is still a serious ongoing matter for merlyn).

japhy,

Welcome to the real world, where most people hate their work and would rather be doing something else, and probably should go do something else because they stink up the place.

This is why a community like perlmonks is a singular joy, because here you find a group of people who, for the most part, really do enjoy Perl and are genuinely interested in learning it.

Don't let this revelation disillusion you. Concentrate on seeking out and developing relationships with others who share your values and don't worry about the rest.

conv

While it's too bad that your co-workers don't enjoy perl, so what? You like it. You're good at it. You don't need everybody to like what you like in order to enjoy what you're doing.

It could be nice if they do, but it doesn't strike to me as something to be sad about, really. There bunch of people around. You can't expect them to have the same sort of enthusiasm that you have.

You know, it's sort of like... "There was a sushi chef named Joe. Joe wanted all of the chefs in the world to like sushi.". Yeah, but you know that ain't happening while there are people who say "Raw fish? Where I come from, we call it 'bait'!" :-) ( No offense, just putting it into perspective. )

There are people who also like that which you like. cool. There are people who hate that which you like. But then there are probably millions more people who just don't give a damn about that which you like. Moral of the story, you know you're good at it, so just bone on.

But there has to be some dividing factor between people that are Perl programmers, and people that are programmers and happen to use Perl.

Why? Why does it bother you so much that other people don't like what you like as much as you do? Why is it important to mark out people who are "Perl programmers" and those who are "programmers who happen to use Perl"? I love beer, but I don't feel sad that some of my friends don't drink at all - it's their choice. Do your bit for advocacy of the things you love, but don't if the people you're advocating it to don't think the same way you do.

I'd have to agree with mischief on this one, Its like saying, "He studies religion, and he's a zealot who started a cult." Not everyone wants or needs a cult (and I hate to use the word cult becuase of its bad connotations, but it fit.)

thanks!
E-Bitch

Imagine what it's like when you got the skills in using perl and are capable of "doing this job just in a minute" (simply because perl is the tool for doing jobs just in a minute)...
You hardly get to the things you are supposed to do *grin*

But I'm working on it: a few people (former C and Matlab coders) have seen how easy it can be to "just change this line from foo to bar" ... we'll see :)

Regards...

Stefan

Very few people (it seems to me) have the joy of their VOCATION and their AVOCATION being the same thing. For example: The "programmers" I work with have college degrees in law, geology, civil engineering, Piano Performance (me), criminal justice admin., and a Computer Learning Center votech graduate. I'm sure this sounds to you like one hell of a interdisciplinary software development project -- Right? Well, all we're doing is very mundane financial analysis and reporting. Basic arithmetic required! Can everyone program? Yes, but I'd hate to have to modify any coworker's code except my Perl friend's. Out of 7 "programmers" we have: 2 Learning Perl (I'm one), 2 Pick Basic (AREV for DOS), 1 Java, 1 Excel jockey and 1 Excel jockey who also knows Fortran. BTW, our LAN administrator used to cut hair. WoooHoo!

japhy I bet more than a dozen Monks could relate similar stories. None of my other coworkers are interested in Perl. The Java guy especially (we're not using Java right now for development and he still won't learn Perl). Our customer is moving more towards Perl cause us two are producing more work products faster than the others because we're using the MySQL and Perl combo doing Web-based financials for management.

One of these fellows comments frequently how much he'd love to learn Perl (we give him every opportunity to participate and invite him to come to monthly meetings since we started Perling 9 months ago) but even though we have my old 2nd Camel in our work library, he has never had ENOUGH interest to read the first chapter!

"The sadest words of tongue or pen; are the words: 'It might have been!'." Unknown Author

japhy don't feel "guilty" for enjoying life and programming in Perl! They are guilty pleasures I share with you! I think you're a smart guy and you know by now, people will be people. If 10,000 of us were ALL like you, no publisher would pay any of us to write different books on REGEXes. Maybe you should count your blessings yeah?

Update: Two points: 1) Programming is "just a job" to some people with the language being only a tool. 2) Very few people allow themselves to be truly passionate about anything (other than sports or religion), even fewer are passionate about programming, still fewer are passionate about Perl. Thank God and vroom (and now YAS) for The Monastery! Blest be the Monks!

..:::::: aquacade ::::::..

As a Perl Monk you should understand that, like those other Monks, that you need only to live the proper life and others will be edified by your example.

Peace.

Almighty God, please give me:
strenght, so I can change things that should be changed,
patience, so I can deal with thing that cannot be changed,
and wisdom to tell one from the other.

This is not proper biblical english (english is not my first language), but you have the idea.

pmas
To make errors is human. But to make million errors per second, you need a computer.

pmas Well said! Your quote is usually attributed to St. Francais of Assisi in a slightly different form:

'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.'

Life management, it ain't religion, its just spiritual progress!

mitd-Made in the Dark
'My favourite colour appears to be grey.'

I learned Perl relatively late. Before that, I wasn't too interested in it (Another scripting language to learn!?) since I mostly did low level C system programming since performance was paramount, and needed to do very little scripting on the side. I was (fortunately) forced into learning it in order to take over an existing project. Since then I've slowly migrated myself into working more and more with it.

Perl really is like a Camel. For me, the first look/smell wasn't the greatest (What's this magical "$_" stuff?). After using it on several problems that would make C seem like the "Sahara desert", I'm much more enthusiastic.

bluto